Rebuilt and restored

A team up for adventure found Dallas’ original Pegasus boxed in a shed. Now it spreads its wings in front of the Omni Dallas Hotel.

Jeremy McKane had never thought much about Pegasus, Dallas’ flying red horse, until art connoisseur June Mattingly sat him down in early 2011 and told him a story.

Like a grandma sharing a favorite memory, she told McKane how the Texlite sign company, owned by her father, H. Harold Wineburgh, had built the original flying red horse, which took its place atop the 29-story Magnolia Building in 1934.

For years, it remained the highest point in the Dallas skyline, visible from miles away, a rotating, enduring red icon of porcelain and neon.

Pegasus stayed there until 1999, when, rusted and decrepit, it was taken down. A new Pegasus, costing $600,000, took its place and was fully illuminated at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2000.

But like a grandson whose grandma’s stories inspire more questions than answers, McKane could not help wondering: What happened to the original Pegasus?

Eleven years later, no one seemed to know. Thus began a mystery, an odyssey that McKane likens to an Indiana Jones adventure. He and others completed the trek by finding the original Pegasus and restoring it for $200,000.

Its happy ending will culminate at 6 p.m. Wednesday, when Mayor Mike Rawlings will re-light the original flying red horse. The symbol of all things Dallas, it will once again shine brightly, this time on a makeshift oil derrick in front of the Omni hotel.

Getting to that point will give McKane a story he can tell his grandchildren.

First of all, he can tell them what Pegasus means and has meant for thousands of people.

For those who grew up in Dallas, Pegasus has long been our beacon, our emotional bond to the city we know as home, a link to the memories of a bygone time. Pegasus is our Gateway Arch, our Statue of Liberty.

Patsy Williams Davis, 84, says her father worked as an engineer for the Atlantic Oil Co., with offices in the Magnolia Building, a few floors below Pegasus. It was comforting to a little girl to be able to watch the illuminated Pegasus from her second-story window on Bryn Mawr Drive in University Park.

In later years, she remembers Pegasus’ red peak pointing skyward in the distance as she drove between Greenville and Dallas.

“Pegasus was a very important part of my growing-up years,” she says, stating unequivocally how happy she is that the original Pegasus has returned “and will still be a part of Dallas.”

It was conceived as the symbol of Magnolia Oil, which in 1959 was folded into Mobil. Pegasus also appeared on Magnolia and later Mobil signs at filling stations.

The comeback of Pegasus No. 1 is due in no small part to McKane’s conversation with Mattingly.

McKane, 38, and Mattingly, 82, first crossed paths in 2011, when she curated his art exhibition at McKinney Avenue Contemporary. In November 2011, the Omni opened in downtown Dallas, its more than 6,000 artworks by 145 artists having been commissioned in part by McKane, who carried out the task for Matthews Southwest, which built the Omni.

The late Jeff West, a vice president at Matthews Southwest, had recruited McKane to help with the Omni artwork, having no idea that their biggest venture lay ahead.

As soon as Mattingly finished her story of the history of the horse, McKane longed to know where and how to find it.

“I think they moved it over to Farmers Market,” Mattingly said. “But I really don’t know. You know, Jeremy, I think we ought to find that horse.”

Thus ensued a feeling of exhilaration, mixed with skepticism. “I figured it had to be in this big crate, locked away,” he says, “Indiana Jones style.”

In April 2011, McKane shared with West his passion for wanting to find the missing horse. West did him one better, becoming a man on a mission, demanding daily from McKane the latest on the missing Pegasus. “He was determined,” McKane says, “to give Dallas back a missing piece of its history.”

The search began at Farmers Market, which turned up nothing, except for the clue that Pegasus had been there briefly, soon after leaving the Magnolia. McKane next went to Kay Kallos, public art coordinator for the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs.

Despite the lack of a paper trail, Kallos concluded that Pegasus might be in a city-owned shed near White Rock Lake. As best anyone could tell, Pegasus had been moved to Farmers Market temporarily, then stored at Fair Park temporarily, then moved to the shed near White Rock.

On April 27, 2012, McKane and crew went to the shed near White Rock and slowly opened its garage-like doors. The interior of the shed was, he says, dusty and musty to the max.

“We open this first crate,” he says excitedly, “and then we see these neon tubes.”

John Dennis, a conservator with the Dallas Museum of Art, had accompanied McKane and Co. He saw only the tubes and said, “What happened? Did somebody steal it?”

“You hear this groaning,” McKane says, “like, ‘Oh, no!’” But then they opened another crate and found most of the pieces.

“We really did feel like adventurers,” McKane says. “We felt like we had found the idol. What’s the one thing that is Dallas? It’s Pegasus! It’s right here. And we found it.”

Then the hard part began: What to do with the original Pegasus. West wanted immediately to restore the fallen horse and place it at the Omni, “mix old lights with new lights,” as he put it.

“He truly became a force of nature,” McKane says, marveling at West’s ability to assemble a restoration team like a conductor elevating an orchestra to produce its finest music. The plan in place, his excitement building, West died of a heart attack in May 2012.

No more than two days after that, developer Jack Matthews summoned McKane to his office, telling him, “Let’s carry on with the Pegasus project. I think it’s very important. I know how important this was to Jeff, so, let’s do it.”

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The problem was, the original Pegasus at that point consisted of two mirror-image panels, 18 pieces to each side of the horse for a total of 36. They were three dozen massively oxidized pieces.

“It was like jewelry that had turned from silver to black,” McKane says. “It was like a major rust bleed down the front of the horse.”

That wasn’t the only problem. The team found bullet holes in Pegasus, including one through the center of the horse’s head. They have no idea how they got there. They knew they needed a qualified restoration expert.

Kallos recommended hiring a conservator named Michael van Enter, who had done remarkable things with the mosaic artwork at the Joule hotel.

Because the team wanted to keep the project secret, they came up with a code name: Miss Peggy. Pegasus had become Miss Peggy.

Pegasus: By the numbers

1934: The original Pegasus took its place atop the 29-story Magnolia Building in 1934. A rotating icon of porcelain and neon made by the Texlite sign company, it remained there until 1999, when, rusted and decrepit, it was taken down.

$600,000: A second Pegasus, costing $600,000, took its place and was fully illuminated at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2000.

$200,000: The original Pegasus was found in pieces in a city-owned shed near White Rock Lake in April 2012. It was restored by a team working for Matthews Southwest, which financed the $200,000 cost of putting it back together.

May 27: It will be re-lit by Mayor Mike Rawlings at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 27, in a special ceremony in front of the Omni, where it now resides atop a makeshift oil derrick. Just like it did atop the Magnolia, it will rotate.

42 x 40: The original, restored Pegasus measures 42 feet wide and 40 feet high, rising 40 feet upward from the base of a 22-foot-high platform (the makeshift oil derrick). It will consist of three elements: Metal, with porcelain on top of that and neon tubing on top of that.

Van Enter examined the pieces closely and concluded that it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared.

“His goal,” McKane says, “was to isolate the corrosion on the horse and clean it up so that the rust was no longer visible on the outside.”

The good thing was, Pegasus consisted of “baked-on porcelain enamel that was just beautiful,” McKane says.

Van Enter says he was forced “to custom-build submersion tanks large enough to accommodate the very large pieces. These were made of plywood and fiberglass, because none were commercially available. In other words, we had to make the equipment to clean the panels. We had to develop a cocktail of compounds to soak the panels in. We had to develop a chemistry particular to this job and then soak the panels. And once they had been soaked for an adequate amount of time, we cleaned them with sponges. Basically, 70 years of dirt and corrosion came off.”

By late 2012, restoration and re-fabrication was well under way. A team made up of McKane and four other people climbed to the top of the Magnolia building to photograph and document the existing armature atop the building.

Because the armature is rusted and worn, the second Pegasus, unlike the first, doesn’t rotate. But just like it did during its heyday atop the Magnolia, the original Pegasus will rotate in front of the Omni.

Michael Van Enter works on the restoration of the original Dallas Pegasus sign, which stood on top of the Magnolia Building from the 1930s until 1999. (Courtesy Jeremy McKane)

Jeff West (left) and Jack Matthews were instrumental in saving and restoring the original Dallas Pegasus sign. West died of a heart attack in 2012. (Courtesy Jeremy McKane)

June Mattingly’s father’s sign company had built the original flying red horse that sat atop the 29-story Magnolia Building in 1934. Tony Collins (left) designed the steel structure that supports the restored Pegasus in its new spot at the Omni Dallas. (Courtesy Jeremy McKane)

Kay Kallos, public art program manager with the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, was among those who located the original Dallas Pegasus sign in a city-owned shed near White Rock Lake. (Courtesy Jeremy McKane)

Nicole Berastaqui works on the restoration of the original Dallas Pegasus sign. (Courtesy Jeremy McKane)

Stacy Laird works on the restoration of the original Dallas Pegasus sign. (Courtesy Jeremy McKane)

Jeremy McKane, uncovers parts of the Pegasus sign in the shed near White Rock Lake where he and others located the sign. (Courtesy Jeremy McKane)

By July 2014, Matthews Southwest took the effort up a notch, putting together a team to bring the mission into the home stretch. Local artist Tony Collins has designed the steel structure, the makeshift oil derrick, that supports Pegasus in its spot at the Omni. Mason Kimbrough of Starlite Signs will provide the neon for Pegasus.

Other team members include Tony Kuria, the design builder for the project; Don Powell, the architect of record; and Ryan Donahue, the structural design engineer.

But as vital as everyone was to the project, McKane and other team members most credit West, “who saw the end game before anybody,” McKane says. “Jeff was the one who made this happen.”

Matthews seconds McKane’s salute to West and calls the end result “a very cool deal. I feel great about what the team did.”

So does former City Manager Mary Suhm, who retired two years ago but worked closely with makeover artists in their labor-intensive efforts to resuscitate the original flying red horse and help it take flight.

“It’s the emblem of Dallas,” Suhm said in a recent interview, “and always has been. It speaks to me about the legend of Pegasus and the striking of the hoof and the springing of the water. That’s the literary side of it. And then there’s the industrial side, which talks about the oil companies.”

Without Suhm “trusting us,” Matthews said, “none of this ... would have happened.”

Despite the enormous contribution of Matthews Southwest (including paying for it), Kallos says the restored Pegasus will always be the property of the city of Dallas.

“Anybody who grew up here or who has spent any time here, they love this red horse,” Kallos says. “And everybody has a wonderful story to tell about the role it played in their lives … driving back into town, seeing it from miles away. People love it so much. It’s great to have it back and in a location that’s so easily accessible.”

Van Enter says he’s “absolutely elated” to have helped with the Pegasus resurrection. “It’s just fantastic to be part of moving an iconic piece of Dallas history back into the public eye. We have such a throwaway society. To take part of history and put it back on its pedestal, it’s really cool.”